A Better Future
by XWingAce
Summary: [Life on Mars] Sam's fought long and hard to get out of his imagination and back to reality. It's time he faced up to it.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **Life on Mars isn't mine, and it never will be. It belongs to Kudos. I'm just playing.

**Credit: **Big thanks to Saganami Dreams, Sophie and Starfish for their tireless and insightful betaing.

**A Better Future**

A feeling of relief spread through Sam Tyler's mind. This was it. Finally, after all this time, he could let go. No more imaginary world, back to reality. He would be getting out of the 70s, back home to 2006. Or however much later it would be. It'd be home, in any case.

Sam closed his eyes, anticipating the transition. As he did so, the voice of a little girl intruded on his consciousness. The girl that had tormented his dreams for all this time. For just an instant, the terror she used to inspire manifested itself again. It set his heart racing and blood pounding in his ears. He had to fight to hear her words. But when he heard what she was actually saying, resentment smothered the fear.

"Where are you going, Sam? Don't you like it here?"

He forced himself to ignore her. She was trying to make him stay, and if he let himself get angry with her, she would succeed. Then his attention would be turned back to the world he had constructed for himself, while all he wanted was to go home. He also ignored the little nagging voice deep in the back of his mind that seemed to be screaming, "She's right, don't go." That was just his fear of change. He had after all made himself reasonably comfortable here. It still couldn't compete with his real home.

He squeezed his eyes further shut, willing himself to wake up. He put so much effort into it that he felt dizzy; static first spreading across his vision and then tingling through his body; the unseen world around him spinning and sounds distorting. Yet still he could hear what was being said to him.

"Sam. Open your eyes. You're home now." The distortion doubled the words and overlaid them, as if two people were speaking at once. But then the static changed into a pinkish glow and the distortion resolved itself into his mother's voice.

"Sam? Wake up, sweetheart; I know you can do it."

Yes. Sam wanted to wake up, open his eyes, greet the woman standing next to his bed and give her a big hug. Right along with whatever medical staff might be standing around. So why couldn't he?

His eyes seemed glued shut. Well, he had been squeezing them tightly. Now Sam put all his effort into forcing them open. Without much success. The tingling sensation had been replaced by numbness, as if his body all of a sudden was no longer inclined to listen to his brain. The beeping of hospital machinery was clear now, but he still couldn't open his eyes. He redoubled his efforts, fighting the sluggishness of his own synapses.

A few points of whiteness broke up the pink. Progress. His eyes were very dry. That made them even harder to open. And now he also felt pain in his throat. Come on, Sam, keep at it. Slowly the white dots joined into a line.

Shadows. He could see shadows moving now. And he heard someone murmuring. Who was it? Not just his mother. The white line broadened. So bright. He closed his eyes against the brightness. Opening them again was just that little bit easier.

Now he could see a little bit of the room around him. White was the dominant colour. A man in a white coat appeared in his field of vision. A doctor, probably.

"Sam? Can you hear me?"

Sam tried to nod, but he could barely move his head. Something was hindering the movement.

"Just blink twice if you can hear me, Sam." When Sam did so, the doctor continued. "You've had an accident, Sam. You've been unconscious for a while."

Yes, he knew that, Sam wanted to say, but he couldn't get the words past the constriction in his throat. Before he could wonder about that, the doctor anticipated his reaction. "You can't talk at the moment, Sam. We've had to put a tube in your throat to help you breathe. We'll take that out soon, though. Do you understand?"

Sam blinked again. Odd, how tiring it suddenly was to do something as simple as blinking. From the way he felt, it was as if he'd run a marathon or something, not like he'd been lying on his back in a hospital room for however long he'd been in a coma. So he closed his eyes again. He vaguely heard the doctor murmur something to someone else, and then the last thing he heard before he fell asleep was his mother's voice.

"You rest now, Sam. You're back with us; that's what's important."

--


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Still not mine...

--

The last thing Sam had expected was that, upon getting out of the coma, he would then have to spend more time in hospital.

For the first week, he barely did anything but sleep. The time he did spend awake he largely spent alone. The doctors and nurses were busy and only there when they were doing tests. His mother was a regular visitor, but that was it. And even she couldn't be there all the time.

He was dozing one afternoon when he found that there was someone who could. Sam had still been half asleep when he'd heard the voice. _"Well, look at that, sleeping beauty. Not like you've got anything better to do, is it?"_

Sam groaned. That was the last thing he needed now. He was tired, he wanted to sleep. He murmured the response. His throat was still sore from the tracheotomy tube, even though it had been removed three days before. "Piss off, Gene. I'm in hospital here." Sam turned his head to look at the clock. "Besides, visiting hours are over. Get lost."

Then the implications of his words penetrated and Sam started fully awake. There was nobody else in the room. So why had he heard Gene Hunt's voice? Was there a real, genuine Gene Hunt, who most likely didn't know Sam from Adam, here to visit him? Just on the off chance that that was the case, Sam called out. "Gene?"

Nothing. Not even a nurse who might have said something for him to misinterpret.

Sam tried to go back to sleep. It took him a long time to get there.

The second time he heard Gene was two days later. Sam was already spending more time awake, and this time he was actually woken up by the nurse coming into his room to check his heart rate and blood pressure.

"_She's a bit of all right. You might be onto something good here after all, Sammy-boy." _Sam heard the remark clear as day. Yet the only one in the room besides him was the nurse.

"Did you say something?" Sam asked her.

"I just said good afternoon, sir."

"Nothing else?"

She gave him a small smile, but did not interrupt her preparations. "Not yet, sir. But if you could raise your left arm, I'm going to take your blood pressure now, sir."

Sam obeyed meekly. His mind, however, had been set racing, and the conclusion it reached did nothing to make him feel better. For pity's sake; he was back home, had left the prehistoric trappings of 1970's Manchester behind him. Why then was he conjuring up the voices of the people he'd imagined to populate his fantasy world? And if he was still imagining them, why did it have to be abrasive, maladjusted Gene? Why couldn't it be sympathetic Annie?

Damn it. He was getting better. The last thing Sam needed was remnants of imaginary friends coming back for a chat. He resolved to ignore any future visits.

His resolve was sorely tested. He was spending more and more time awake, alone and annoyed at his inability to get up and do anything. Initially, he had trouble even lifting his arm, never mind doing anything else. He hadn't used his muscles for so long, they'd atrophied. For a long time, until they were trained again sufficiently to do their job, all he could do was lie there and think.

Aside from his mother, who would stop by every day regular as clockwork, he had few visitors. Maya visited a few times. The first time, Sam had been inordinately relieved to see her, and she had seemed happy to see him okay too. Yet all the conversation felt strained. Sam hadn't wanted to talk about his experiences during the coma and Maya seemed to be deliberately not mentioning something. The second time she came, that mystery at least was solved when she cautiously announced her engagement. Her relief when Sam, after his initial surprise, had congratulated her had been clear. But then when Sam had tried to ask about what had happened to her during her kidnapping, she avoided the issue.

Sam got a breakdown of the course of those events from some of his former colleagues. They had seemed rather relieved that he'd asked after it. At least it gave them something to talk about. After his accident, a retired police officer was called in as a consultant, someone who remembered a similar case, from way back when he'd been a Detective Sergeant. The records of that case turned up the address of Colin Rames's neighbour, and the man's psychological record. He had indeed just been judged rehabilitated, and released. Maya was discovered in his house soon after. None of his colleagues seemed able to name the officer concerned, though.

Other topics never got very far, and none of the officers came more than once. To Sam, all of them had seemed like strangers, and the feeling must have been mutual.

Complete loneliness was hard to bear, and the Gene Hunt now hanging around in the back of his head was just as persistent as the real thing. If there'd ever been a real thing. Sam had to give him full marks for consistency, in any case. Of course the guv turned up where he was least wanted. His continual comments on the situation Sam found himself in, on his surroundings and the hospital staff, became progressively harder to ignore.

As time wore on, the resolution to ignore Gene became even harder to maintain. Sam's resolve weakened with the amount of time he spent lying alone in a white room that was too warm and too bare. He found himself looking forward to Gene's derogatory remarks. At least it was another voice besides his own echoing around his head.

Also, the big guy _helped_. He got bored of lying in that hospital bed even before Sam did, and he was constantly pushing Sam to get on with it and get it over with. Because Gene was egging him on, the physical therapy that Sam was undergoing in order to walk and function again progressed remarkably quickly. According to the doctors, at least. They were amazed by the speed and level of his recovery. Yet six months of daily exercises and medical tests did not equal a rapid recovery to either Sam or Gene.

The day he finally got out of the hospital momentarily revived the feeling of relief and homecoming Sam had felt when he had managed to escape from his coma. He'd been outside a few times already, for short walks when the weather allowed, but when he left the hospital this time, the sun just seemed brighter, the air that much cleaner, and the roses next to the hospital entrance appeared to flower in a deeper shade of red. For almost five minutes, he just stood there in the sun, enjoying the gentle breeze. Free at last.

But of course that wasn't true. He'd been allowed out of the hospital, but he had to return every few days for even more tests and therapy. Besides, during the time he'd been in the coma, his mother had given up his apartment. The only place he could go to was his mother's.

Even at her age, she was doing everything in her power to take care of her son. And she did it all with the strength of a woman who had been on her own for more than thirty years, with nobody to help her face the world ever since her husband'd walked out.

Sam's curiosity about what had really happened at that wedding reception had been growing ever since he'd woken up to find his mother sitting at his bedside in the 21st century, but he hadn't yet managed to work up the courage to ask. Maybe, he considered, because he was just a little scared of the answer. At least now he could still operate under the delusion that his father had been a good man forced to flee. Whatever he had seen in 1973, as a grown man or as a child, so far it was nothing but imagination. He'd always had an active one.

But he'd fought long and hard to get out of his imagination and back to reality. It was about time he faced up to it.

He brought it up over dinner one night. He'd cooked it; that was the least he could do to help around the house. Still, it didn't taste quite as it should. Maybe because he missed the sense of triumph. All the ingredients had been readily available in the shops; he hadn't had to sniff them out in unlikely corners of Manchester. He swallowed a bite and then mustered the courage to ask the question on his mind for over six months already.

"Mum?"

"Sam?"

"I've been wondering. About dad, about when he left."

His mother put her fork down and looked at him. "Why?"

Sam forced a smile. "I had a lot of time to think about it." When that elicited a small smile from his mother in return, he continued: "You never really talked about why he left."

His mother picked up her fork again and started picking at her food. She deftly separated the bits of meat from the vegetables and the sauce. But she still didn't say anything.

Sam tried to be a bit more specific. "Was there trouble? I remember we moved around a lot." He did, too. There was still the hurt when discovering, after one such move, that his favourite football had been left behind.

His mother didn't stop pushing her food around her plate, but she raised her eyes to look at Sam again. Her face was blank. "Yes, there was trouble. Your dad wasn't that good a salesman. We were always behind on the rent." Her lips pulled upwards for an instant. "Not that that situation improved after he left."

"That's why we had to move around so much."

She nodded. "He was always gambling, too. And then he got in a spot of trouble with some gang or other. Do you remember there were police officers with us?" Now she really smiled again. "You were so excited when that happened. Couldn't stop talking about it for days."

Sam had a flashback of himself, four years old, in his room playing with his Thunderbirds toys. Then the door opened and a giant in a camel coat walked in. "Hello Sam," the giant said and crouched, producing a police badge. "Mind if I take a little look round your room?" Little Sam, open-mouthed, couldn't do anything but nod. "Good kid." Then the giant started rummaging around his room, finally taking a book from the bedside table. Before he walked out of the room, he patted little Sam on the head. "Now you behave yourself."

Sam recognised the giant as Gene, but he wasn't sure where the memory was coming from. It could be a genuine memory of his childhood, or it could be a construct from his experiences during the coma. Most of what he remembered from those days was now contaminated like that. He had, after all, only been four years old. How much did a child that age really remember? Hell, maybe it was even Gene contributing nuggets of experience.

"_It wasn't me. Whatever you decide to dream up about your childhood is down to you."_

"Sam?" His mother sounded concerned. He must have drifted off. He cleared his throat, then smiled at her.

"Yeah, I remember." He paused. "Wasn't there police at the wedding reception too?"

She nodded again. "There were. They were still looking for Vic. They said he was an important witness in a case. I think there was more going on than that. He never would tell me what he was doing all the time."

"I saw him."

"What?"

"At the wedding. I went to find him in the woods. He was there." Sam paused, unsure how to continue. Did his mother know all this? "The policewoman in the red dress. He was…" He didn't want to say it. So he took a bite of his food to conceal his insecurity. There was a long silence while he chewed. When he'd swallowed it, he continued. "Would have ended really badly if the police officer hadn't interfered."

He hadn't looked his mother in the eye while he'd said this. Now he looked up at her and saw that she sat frozen. Blood had drained from her face. "Mum? Are you okay?"

She didn't reply, for long enough that Sam was out of his chair and on his way around the table when she did speak. "I'm fine, Sam. But I think I'd better have a lie down. Thanks for the dinner." She let him help her up, but then extricated herself from his grip and made her way to the bedroom.

After that day, Sam sometimes found his mother staring at him, though she looked away and denied it if he asked after it. She also became even more solicitous of him. As he was getting stronger and stronger, this only worked to frustrate Sam even more. He had nothing to do but some chores around the house. He wanted to be really doing something, not sit around twiddling his thumbs between visits to the hospital and being fawned over by his mother.

To work off his frustration and escape his mother, he took to taking long walks during the day. But even they felt pointless. All he did was walk around in a larger or smaller circle, really. They had no real _point. _And of course, walking around alone without anyone else to attract his attention was a good way to bring Gene back to the forefront.

"'_S not right, a man your age bein' taken care of by his mum. Should be the other way around, if there were any justice."_

_Yeah, Gene. In case you hadn't noticed, I can't do that since I haven't got a job. It's not like I _like _just hanging around there._

"_Well, then get a bloody job. What, the modern city don't need a decent sheriff anymore?"_

That was slightly easier said than done. But eventually, after six more months, the doctors declared Sam healthy enough to return to police work. The Greater Manchester Police was glad to have him, but of course the position he had held before his accident had been filled. No equivalent positions were available. He ended up taking a position as Detective Inspector in C Division.

The first day he walked into the office was an experience remarkably similar to the first time Sam'd walked into the 1973 equivalent. Despite the marked colour contrast, everything felt just as alien. And of course Gene still had to get a word in.

"_Where have all the ashtrays gone?"_

_Smoking's not actually allowed in the workplace nowadays, Gene. _

"_No smoking? That's ridiculous."_

Gene was forced to the background as Sam spotted a woman in her early thirties, clearly waiting for him. He approached her.

"DI Tyler?"

"Yeah."

She held out her right hand. "DS Christine Kent. I'll be working with you, mostly."

Sam shook the proffered hand. "Nice to meet you, Sergeant." He felt horrified at how forced that had come out. He tried again. "Do you mind if I call you Christine? Or would you prefer something else?"

"Christine's fine, sir."

"Call me Sam, then."

"Yes, sir. DCI Chase said she wanted to see you when you came in, sir."

"Lead the way."

Sam followed DS Kent through the seemingly endless corridors, light grey walls only broken up by blue doors and the occasional window showing dark grey sky. Gene took advantage of the monotony.

"_What, a man can't have a fag now and again?" _

_People can smoke as much as they want. Outside. At least this way you don't suffocate on the smoke in the office._

"This way, sir." The detective's voice startled Sam out of his internal conversation. He had almost walked past the door into the CID offices. Now he entered it, and immediately all eyes were fixed on him. Again, he had a sense of dejà-vu. The detectives in 1973 had reacted the same way to his entrance.

This time DS Kent led him between the desks toward an office. Through the open blinds a woman could be seen sitting at the desk, talking into a telephone. She spotted them, but then gestured to wait. Sam leaned against the doorsill and continued where he'd left off.

_What are you worried about anyway? I don't smoke._

"_I do. And I've been dying for a smoke for almost a year now, I might add."_

_Serves you right for not getting out of my head when you should._

"_Hey, it's your head. Throw me out if you dislike me being here so much."_

_You know, I have the feeling I've been on the other end of this conversation. _

The woman in the office had finished her conversation and was now waving them in, so Sam just sent a mental snort Gene's way and entered the office.

The furnishings were nothing if not utilitarian, and the whole office was remarkably uncluttered. About the only thing in it that wasn't purely functional were a series of photographs on the walls. They showed police officers, both men and women, individuals and in groups, dressed in fashions spanning the decades. Sam thought he recognised his old Chief Super in one of the photographs.

Again there was the handshaking and introducing spiel. Somewhere in the back of his head, a wolf-whistle sounded. Sam ignored it. Then DCI Jean Chase motioned him to sit down. She had a file open on her desk. She gave it a quick glance before addressing Sam.

"I hear we could have been colleagues, Tyler. Why settle for less?"

"I wanted to get back to work. I've been an Inspector for so long, I can be one for a bit longer."

"Glad to see you're so eager." She gave him a level look. "I do hope we can be clear on who's in charge."

"Of course."

"Good." She smiled at him. "Wouldn't do to have a turf war between me and one of my Inspectors." The file received another quick glance before it was closed. "I look forward to working with you, DI Tyler."

It was a dismissal. A gentle one, and DCI Chase got up to shake his hand again, but a dismissal nevertheless. Sam walked out of the office and immediately Gene decided to put his tuppence in.

"_What's a plonk doing as a DCI? Mind you, she looked like she could fillet you with nothing but a glare. Might make a half- decent desk sergeant if she dressed down a bit."_

Sam decided not to answer that but instead turned his attention to DS Kent, still outside the office. At some point in the recent past she had acquired two cups of coffee, one of which she now offered to Sam. "Coffee, sir?"

Sam accepted it. "Cheers." He took a sip, then asked, "Since when do they have Sergeants fetching the coffee?"

She winked at him. "Consider it a once in a lifetime opportunity. Because you're new."

He responded to the wink with a grin of his own. "I'll remember not to take advantage of your kindness in future. For the moment, though, where can I find my desk?"

His desk was found easily enough, and one feature in particular made for a comforting sight, though of course it provoked another comment from Gene.

"_The infamous PC Terminal. Don't see him catching many villains."_

_You might be surprised._

Sam spent the rest of the day familiarising himself with the procedures in the station, and the new interface on the computer. There was nothing unfamiliar, however, about the stacks of files he found on his new desk the following morning. Yup, business as usual. Finally.

--


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: You guessed it, I don't own this show.

--

Business as usual turned out to be an incredible amount of shockingly routine cases, hardly worth the attention of an Inspector, but Sam put his back into it and worked through them. It was pretty much all he could do. It wasn't like his free time offered any interesting distractions. The friends he'd had before the accident had all moved on, the distance had grown to such an extent that they didn't really deserve the title 'friend' anymore. And his new colleagues offered little solace in that regard. He couldn't really find a way to connect to them. After duty they all went off on their own pursuits, leaving him to his own devices.

It was all quite different from what Sam had got used to. In 1973, the CID team had been close-knit, with a lot of the time not on duty spent with the same people in the pub, playing cards, watching the sport or just drinking. Going along with that had meant he integrated relatively quickly. No such thing happened now. Sam usually did go to the pub just to avoid sitting in his apartment alone, but that just meant that sat in the pub, alone. And not even drinking all that much, since he was still under doctor's orders to take it easy.

Those times really made him miss the good old days.

But there were also times when he didn't miss them, like he first time he managed to solve a case simply by doing an electronic record search that finished in half an hour. At that point he actually kissed the computer. Then he realised the whole room was watching and sniggering. For half a second Sam had wanted to sink into the floor in embarrassment, but then Gene in the back of his head started laughing too, and Sam had to either join in or snark at Gene. Since Gene wasn't actually in the room, that really left only one option. He laughed with them.

"_PC Terminal to the rescue."_

_Shut it._

Actions like that got him the reputation as the office eccentric, but that was nothing new. As long as they let him do his work and did as they were asked, it didn't matter. Well, to Gene it did, but Gene's immediate reaction to anything he didn't like was violence. That didn't work these days.

What did matter was that mild amusement wasn't the only reaction his antics triggered. He'd shocked some of the constables with his rough treatment of suspects during arrest, though it hadn't led to any reprimands yet. Sam really didn't think he was being that rough. Compared to the way Gene used to handle detainees, he was being downright gentle.

Not that he'd said that to the constables; that sort of remark was liable to transform his reputation from 'eccentric' into 'dinosaur'.

"_You make that sound like a bad thing. Looks to me like you catch more villains than they do. Give 'em one in the face if they laugh about it."_

_It's not exactly accepted practice to rough up one's co-workers, Gene. _

"_Not accepted_ practice _to sit around in a pub on your own either. Still seems to happen a lot lately."_

_Yeah. I'm sitting in a pub, talking to a manifestation of my subconscious. Why are people starting to think I'm crazy, I wonder?_

"_So why are you still talking to me then? Could've told me to shove off ages ago."_

_I did. Didn't work. Maybe I am crazy after all._

"_Since when did missing a few marbles stop you?"_

--


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Nope, don't own the show.

--

Back at work. Another day, another case and, thankfully, an arrest. It was a big case, too, finally. The arrest wasn't quite the big fish Sam had been hoping for, but a middleman could prove informative nonetheless. If that middleman were inclined to share that information, at least. This one wasn't.

He'd let Christine handle the first round of questions. She'd had the same by-the-book technique he used to employ himself: shock the suspect with the pictures and heaps of evidence against him in order to try and get him to co-operate and confess. No such luck. The suspect – a man caught dealing drugs – wasn't having any of it. He'd barely even shot a glance at the photographs of the victim of a particularly nasty overdose. His time and attention seemed completely occupied with complaining about his treatment.

"_Miserable little shit. He'd never have got this far in one piece in my station." _

_No, but then you wouldn't be interested in finding out where he got his supplies, either._

Gene had a point, though. Patrick McKinnon was stalling, holding up the investigation for no good reason at all. The fun part was that he really wasn't that important a cog in the machine. The drugs he was selling were being supplied by someone else, and that someone else didn't seem to care much about the quality of their product. The analysts in the police laboratory had found multiple contaminants, all highly toxic, the majority of them most likely present _before _the drug was cut with whatever filler was cheapest. Already, there were three people in hospital and one person dead, and this idiot was stalling.

It was testing Sam's patience. He decided it was time to get directly involved in the interrogation. He'd try asking nicely, first. He held the drugs up to the suspect's nose. "Come on, Pat. We found these drugs on you." He dropped the packets of powder on the table. "That's plenty to get us a conviction, but you know what? I'd rather know where you got them."

"I'm not saying anything until I get my lawyer. And I want to file a complaint."

Sam grabbed one of the pictures and held it up. McKinnon looked away. "Take a good look at what those drugs you're selling are doing. D'you want to go down for that too?

McKinnon looked Sam in the eye, aggression clear on his face. "I've been knocked around, and insulted, and you got _nothing_. I want my solicitor."

"Just stop it, Pat, and tell us what we want to know," tried Sam. But McKinnon still wasn't having any of it.

"I'm the victim of police brutality."

"_He's _what_? Bloody hell, Sam, show him he's not even close, eh?_

Gene's suggestion didn't sound all that unappealing to Sam. McKinnon's behaviour had already been stretching his patience to its limits. "You want brutality?" Sam tossed the photo on the table before stepping around it. He took McKinnon's right arm and twisted it behind his back, at the same time pushing his face close to the picture on the table. "Take a look at that! How's that for brutality?"

McKinnon was shrieking, but it was Christine's shocked exclamation of "Sir!" that made him realise he was too close to the line. He let McKinnon sit up straight again, then jerked him to his feet. He called the uniformed officers standing outside back in and pushed the man into their arms.

"Get him back to the cells." Then he walked out of the interrogation room ahead of the uniforms, temper unabated, with Christine close on his heels.

"_What'd you do that for? You were just getting somewhere."_

_No, I bloody well wasn't, Gene. Any further than that and the git would have walked out of here and be suing for compensation on top of it._

He hadn't yet walked very far when he passed a group of officers amiably chatting. He caught a remark from one of them.

"Look at Jack Regan there, all upset."

That did it. He'd been ignoring the remarks and the occasional giggle behind his back for weeks now, and he really wasn't in the mood for taking any more. Sam rounded on the group and dragged the offending party out by his shirt, then slammed him hard against the wall.

"You have a problem, Peter? One you can tell me to my face?"

Before DI Peter Djawhuri could give any sort of reply, however, a third voice interrupted.

"Gentlemen."

DCI Jean Chase had stopped next to the two of them, and now stood, arms folded, waiting for the scuffle to break up. Sam let go of Djawhuri.

Their boss nodded. "I'm assuming there's some sort of justification. Sam?"

Although she had addressed Sam, it was DI Djawhuri who answered first. "I've no idea, ma'am. I was standing here talking, and then he just turns and starts throwing me around."

That remark made Sam's temper flare up again, but DCI Chase's interference had given him enough time to let it cool to a point where he could consider his actions. And he had been out of line, or at least at a point close enough to stepping over it as to make no difference. What was going on with him? He decided to show some contrition. "There was some provocation, but it wasn't in any proportion to the reaction." He extended his hand to Djawhuri, who didn't take it. "My apologies."

"Right." Chase turned to the group of officers watching. "Move along people, nothing to see here." Then she turned back to Sam and Peter. "Sam, my office, please. I'll be there as soon as I've delivered this." She waved a file folder in the air. "And you, Peter, keep the office humour to a minimum, yeah?"

Sam followed orders and found himself sitting alone in Chase's office, with once again nothing to do but think. On the one hand, there was the shame about losing his temper so royally not just in front of his colleagues and boss, but also personnel from other departments. But in another corner of his mind, it felt good. He was so tired of walking on eggshells, like he'd been doing ever since he got back onto the more major cases, that it was tremendously satisfying to just stomp on them for once.

He didn't used to be like this, he was sure. What had the time spent lying in a hospital bed, trapped in his own imagination, done to him? Besides land him with a mental companion who _was_ fully deserving of the Jack Regan nickname, that was.

"_Oi!"_

_Okay, at least you drove yourself._

"_I'd probably have more to say about it if I actually knew what you were on about."_

Everything felt wrong now. He didn't fit in, not with his former friends, not with his current colleagues, not even with his family, if he was completely honest. Lately his mother had also been getting on his nerves about something or other; he'd never stayed on the topic long enough to pin down what, exactly. It got too close to what had happened during his coma to be comfortable.

His eye caught the picture of his former Chief Superintendent and his wife, smiling at him. "Bet you didn't think I'd still be a DI at forty after getting there at thirty, did you, sir?"

Of course the photograph didn't reply, but there was something in it that made Sam get up and study it more closely. Then a name finally clicked, and Sam felt his heart speed up. DCS Chris Skelton. How could he have missed it all this time? Sam took the frame off the wall and held the picture at a different angle. If he squinted, with some good will he could recognise something of the young Detective Constable in the old man grinning at him.

"_Chris made it all the way to DCS? I'm impressed. And he managed to hook up with Cartwright too. Well done to him."_

Gene's comment momentarily confused Sam, but as he turned his attention to Mrs Skelton, the source of the comment was immediately obvious. Annie's smile hadn't changed in all those years. She looked good in the picture, older but also more confident. Lucky Chris, indeed.

"First woman to reach the rank of Detective Inspector here in C division." Sam started. He hadn't heard Chase come in. "Wasn't her husband your boss, before?"

"_Or you his…"_

Sam cleared his throat. "Yes." He sought for more to say. "A good man."

"Hmm." His current boss had taken her seat and was now pointing him to one of the other chairs. "What would he have thought of what happened back there, I wonder?"

Sam thought back to the Chris he knew best. Not much, as far as Sam was concerned, but somehow that didn't seem like the correct answer. Probably because that particular Chris was, in all likelihood, fictional.

His long silence provoked another question from Jean. "What did happen back there, Sam?"

"People've been joking about me behind my back. I lost my temper over it this time."

"Just like you lost your temper with Patrick McKinnon? That was very close, Sam." Her eyebrows dropped into a frown. "Are you sure you're okay? Because I read your file, and nothing in there makes me think that what just happened is normal."

"It's not. It won't happen again."

"I should hope not. But I don't recognise the man I have working for me from your file at all."

Sam had no reply to that. She was probably right, at that. He took a deep breath. What was happening to him? What _had_ happened to him? People from his imagination were proving to be real, or real people had populated his imagination, and events that had influenced no-one but himself and even that only in the confines of his own head had left an indelible mark on reality. So what was and wasn't real?

"_Ease up there, sunshine. You're making _me_ dizzy."_

"Look, Sam. You went through an incredibly traumatic experience. By all accounts, you were back on your feet and hard at work before most people would even be halfway through recovery. Don't you think you might have been overdoing it a little?"

"No, I don't. Doing nothing was terrible. I had to get something to keep me busy."

"And this was the only option?" She didn't sound like she believed him. "Why come back to a highly stressful job when you've got every excuse to take it nice and easy at home?"

Well, without a job he hadn't had a home, for one thing. His mother's worrying was driving him insane even from a distance, never mind when he was still living with her. That distance was necessary. Added to it was that, to Sam, the stress of sitting at home doing nothing had been far worse than the constant pressure of office gossip. He could ignore it, most of the time, as long as he was working. "I've always been a police officer. I've never wanted to be anything else."

His boss raised her eyebrows. "Now that, I recognise from your record." She looked at him intently. "Considering your medical history, I still think you need to take it easier." She typed something into her computer before turning back to him. "I'm putting you on administrative duties for the next couple of weeks. Then you won't have to stress about your cases so much. Get back home every night by six. And for today, just go home. Get an early night, catch up on some rest. Okay?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No."

Well, that was that, then. As Sam got up to leave, DCI Chase shot him one more glance, accompanied by a glimmer of a smile. "Get well, Sam. I'd hate to lose a detective of your calibre to burnout."

--


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Still not mine. I'm starting to repeat myself, here.

--

So Sam found himself at home, alone, at four in the afternoon. Daytime TV was still in full swing, he hadn't any new emails, and the mere thought of setting up his games console gave him a headache. So he resorted to what had become his usual escape from forced inactivity: he took a walk.

That gave him plenty of time to mull over the picture of Chris and Annie. He _had_ known about the man, had even known his history. He had, after all, been lectured about it to exhaustion during his retirement reception. A whole series of former superiors and colleagues had heaped congratulations on him for lasting that long. So that might well have been the source of the character in Sam's imagination. And Mrs Skelton had been a fairly well-known person around the station as well, and Sam _had_ met her.

And the dates fit. At that point in time, the real Chris Skelton would have been a Detective Constable. So maybe Sam'd just used facts and gossip about these two people he already knew subconsciously to reconstruct them in his fantasy world. Yes, that had to be it.

"_What's it say about you that you imagined your boss's wife as your girlfriend, then?"_

_Not girlfriend, Gene. Confidante. She certainly projected that even at sixty._

"_You keep on believing that."_

_Hang on, where've we ended up?_

Sam had stopped paying attention to where his feet were taking him. Somehow, they had carried him toward an old haunt he had never actually visited. He was now looking up at the faded sign of the Railway Arms.

The exterior hadn't really changed, only faded with the years, but the current licensing plaque near the door proclaimed that it was still a pub. Sam tried the door. It was open.

The interior was as hauntingly familiar as the exterior. Nobody in here had cared much about updating, then. The only modern objects were various commercials and the widescreen TV, sat in the same location that Sam had mounted another TV, a long time ago. Correction: where he had mounted it in his imagination. In this location it was a bit hard to tell the difference.

"Can I help you, sir?"

The décor was so familiar that Sam had been expecting Nelson's exaggerated Jamaican accent. Therefore he initially didn't react to the landlord's soft Mancunian inflection. Only after the man repeated his entreaty did the words penetrate. "Oh, sorry. Diet Coke, please."

A small bottle and glass were promptly placed before him. "You new here?"

"Sort of." The empty words were out before Sam could stop himself. Then again, it couldn't hurt to ask. "I think I may have been here before. Do you know anybody named Nelson? He used to tend bar here."

The barman frowned in consideration, then shook his head. "Not that I know of. Maybe the guy in here before me might have. But he took over fifteen years ago."

"He was Jamaican, used to really exaggerate his accent."

"Nope, sorry, sir. Can't help you there."

"That's okay. I was just curious. Maybe I was somewhere else. It was a long time ago."

So there was no definite answer whether Nelson had existed or not. Maybe that would have been too much to hope for.

Sam stayed in the pub a while longer, chatting on about its history with the barman. It had been the police boozer for a long time. Didn't see that many policemen in here nowadays, though, only a few of the retired officers.

When the regulars started to come in, Sam judged that it would be about time to head home. He still had quite a long walk ahead of him, after all. When he went out the door he almost bumped into another customer, a fairly heavyset man with a full but grey moustache, coming into the pub.

"Mind where you're going, Bo­–y."

"Sorry, sir." Sam muttered the apology, then went on his way. He did not see the man he had bumped into staring after him.

He got home tired from the walk but content. The familiar environment of the Railway Arms had worked miracles to relax him, despite the initial sense of displacement. Maybe taking it easy wasn't such bad advice after all.

He turned on the telly, hoping to still catch some of the news, but it was in the middle of a long item about the progress of the development for the London Olympics. Not interesting. He started flipping channels; past some inane comedy and a soap, on to an image of a little girl in a red dress playing tic-tac-toe with a green and yellow clown.

His heart suddenly beating somewhere in the region of his Adam's apple, Sam fumbled with the remote control to switch the set off. What was she doing here, in reality? No, no, no, there had to be a rational explanation. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down, but his attention was drawn by an insistent sound. Three beeps, a short pause, and three beeps again.

Why was he hearing things again? He put his hands over his ears, in the hope that that would stop it, but even with his ears covered he could still hear it.

Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep.

Sam slowly lowered his arms again. He listened more intently for the sound now. Maybe it would contain a clue for what was going on.

Beep beep beep. Bzzt Bzzt. Beep beep beep. Bzzt Bzzt.

His mobile. He recognised the humming tone of the mobile in vibrate mode. He took it out of the pocket of his jacket. It was also the source of the beeps.

He stared at it a little longer, trying to figure out who would be calling him at this hour. Then he pressed the 'answer' button. "Hello?"

His mother's voice came over the line. "Sam? What's going on, sweetheart?"

Sam quickly hung up. This was all too similar to his experiences in the coma. It couldn't be right. He switched the phone off for good measure, then pulled the plug from his TV.

_Gene, I could really use some of those 'insightful' comments right now._ The guv's down-to-earth wit would help ground him a bit, hopefully.

But Gene remained silent.

Sam turned off the lights and curled up on the couch. His heart was still racing, and he was breaking out in sweat. What was happening? Was he going crazy?

He lay there are long time, wondering. At some point, he must have fallen asleep, however, because he was woken the following morning by the alarm clock in the bedroom going off.

By daylight everything seemed much more normal again. But last night had been absolute hell, and Sam didn't want to go through something like that again. He had to find out, now. What was going on? Maybe if he could talk to DCS Skelton he could find out something more. That would have to mean finding them first, of course.

--


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Don't own the show. Just playing. Please don't sue.

--

Finding an address for DCS Chris Skelton and Annie Skelton née Cartwright was as easy as requesting the file from Records at the station. And, perhaps not so surprisingly given her remarks yesterday, DCI Chase didn't protest when Sam requested the afternoon off.

So now he found himself at the door of a cosy little house on the outskirts of Manchester itself. Sam felt the apprehension as he rang the bell. The address on file had been quite old. Maybe they had moved already. Both of them were, after all, retired and free to do as they pleased.

After what seemed like an eternity, the door finally opened. Facing Sam was a young woman in a cleaner's uniform.

"Can I help you?"

Sam cleared his throat and then showed his badge. "Good afternoon. I'm DI Sam Tyler. I was looking for Mr. or Mrs. Skelton. Are they at home?"

The maid frowned in confusion. "I'm the cleaner for Ms Harbinger. Don't know about anybody named Skelton, officer."

Damn it. So they were gone. Disappointment was already setting in. Yet he could have expected it, even so. "Can I talk to Ms Harbinger then?"

"Please wait. I'll ask."

After a few minutes, Sam was let into the living room which harboured an elderly woman, who greeted him cheerfully. "Excuse me for not getting up, officer. I fell, a week ago. I still can't stand all that well on the leg."

"That's okay, Ms Harbinger. Thank you for seeing me."

"You were asking about the Skeltons, I think?"

"Yes. They used to live here."

"So they did. Lovely couple, from the few times I met them. Both former police officers. But of course you know that."

Sam smiled. "Yes, I do. In fact, I used to work for DCS Skelton."

Ms Harbinger returned the smile. "Then you know them better than I do, DI Tyler."

Sam responded to that by shrugging. "Maybe. But I'm trying to find them, and this is the last address on file. Do you know where they went?"

"Sure. They sold this house to move to Spain. They said they wanted to make the most of their retirement. Finally have some real sunshine for once."

"Spain?" They really did want to get away from here, then. It also made them all the more unreachable. But maybe all was not lost. "Did they leave some sort of an address?"

The old woman looked at him sadly and shook her head. "They didn't leave any forwarding address with me when they moved. I'm sorry."

"No fault of yours, Ms Harbinger. Thank you for your time." Sam got up to leave.

"Not a problem, DI Tyler. It's nice to have someone to talk to for a change."

The cleaner let him out again. Dead end number two.

"_What'd you expect? For them to sit around waiting for you?"_

_I don't know, Gene. Something._

--

Since he'd taken the whole of the afternoon off, Sam once again found himself home far earlier than usual. This time when he tried the door, however, he found it unlocked.

He quietly edged through the door, opening it as little as possible. There were noises coming from the kitchen, so he snuck along the corridor to the doorway opening up on it. But then he heard his mother singing under her breath and he abandoned the stealth.

"Mum!"

His mother started with a small scream, dropping the sponge she'd been holding. "Sam! Ooh, you scared me. I didn't hear you come in."

"Why are you here, mum?"

"You acted so strange on the telephone last night, and you haven't been 'round in so long, I thought I'd stop by and surprise you."

"At four in the afternoon? I don't usually get home until at least six, mum. Later, more often than not."

"So by the time you did get home I'd have dinner ready and everything squared away." She dried her hands and walked over to Sam to try and hug him, but he backed away. She put a hand on his cheek instead. "Take care of my little boy. And then maybe I could talk to my son again."

"Mum, I…"

"Sammy, you've been through such a lot. Why won't you talk about it?"

For just an instant, Sam wanted to. Tell his mother everything, the whole story, no matter how crazy it might sound. But then she'd most likely think him completely insane and start harassing him about seeing more doctors, and maybe even giving up work. He couldn't take that right now.

He took the hand that was resting on his cheek in both of his. "Sorry, mum, but I have plans for tonight," he lied. "Why don't I help you finish this, and then I'll take you home, yeah?"

"Alright, son." His mother demurred, pulled her hand free and went to pick up the sponge she had dropped. While they finished cleaning, she tried one last time. "Someone called this morning, asking about you."

Christine must have really been worried, to be calling his mother. He'd have to warn her about snooping too deeply into his private life. He didn't appreciate it when people did that without asking him first. That was also what he told his mother.

"I'm worried too, Sam, and I'm your mother and you still won't tell me anything."

He took his mother home soon after. He didn't have any plans, but he did still have something to consider. Chris Skelton's file had included his employment history and the name of his superior when he started out in CID.

DCI Gene Hunt.

--


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing.

--

Sam paused in front of the gates. Here he would be. The real Gene Hunt. Or what was left of him.

"_Now what's the point of going in there?"_

_Closure, Gene._

"_You that eager to get rid of me?"_

_That's not what I meant._

A car turned into the parking lot behind him as Sam walked past the gates, into the cemetery. A quick search located the required headstone. There were no flowers, and it carried two names. One of which was Gene Hunt. Sam gently placed the dried bouquet he'd brought on it, then remained crouched by the grave.

That was it, then. The people who, in his version of 1973, had been his closest friends, the people he had trusted, were gone. Dead, or moved somewhere they couldn't be found. There went his chances of ever finding out if his version of the '70s had been the real one or not. If he was crazy or not.

"_If you think I'm dead and gone, think again, Sammy-boy."_

_In my head doesn't count._

"_Doesn't it?"_

A hand descended on his shoulder. Sam looked up to see – well, an old man's face, really, with a heavy grey moustache hiding most features from the nose down. Still, there was something familiar about it.

"Ray?"

The old man grinned. Then he nodded to Sam's mother, who had now come up on the other side of him. "You should talk more to your mother, boss. The lady might have something important to tell you."

"DI Carling helped solve Maya's case, sweetheart. I met him at Maya's wedding reception." His mother helped Sam up, then wrapped her arms around him for a second. "When we got to talking I realised I'd met him before, a long time ago, when your dad disappeared. Didn't think about it much at the time. But then you started talking about what happened there, and you knew so much, and you looked so familiar…" She trailed off.

"Gave me quite a start when you turned up at the Arms a couple of nights ago. And you didn't even seem to notice." Ray gave another grin. "Not much changed there then, eh, Sam?"

Sam grinned back. "You have. I didn't recognise you. You got old."

"And you didn't," Ray answered, but before he could formulate the question that should go with that statement, Ruth Tyler had already done so.

"Son, what happened? How did it happen?"

"I still don't know what exactly happened, mum. But at least I know it did." He hugged her, then patted Ray on the shoulder. "And right now, that's what matters."

"_So that's it then?"_

_For the moment, yeah. It'll do._


End file.
